And if the ground
Could still hum
With magic
After a rainstorm
I decided, so could I.

They speak to the madman,
Suppression, subversion, detraction,
A vocabulary of ‘less than’.

They speak to the madman,
To the loveless and the wounded,
The self-doubting ego.

They speak to the madman,
A consort of shadows,
Recurrent with paradox.

Until...uncertain as to the integrity of my own thoughts,
Understudied by self-censure and distrust,
I pause to listen in silence to the silence which listens back.

Your life sounds hard,
difficult, sad,
and
I wonder,
can you, do you,
set limits with your family?

Not sure,
it’s okay to set limits
when you must always
do the "right thing"
even when,
even when,
it feels dishonest.

Be assured, your unnecessary shame
is safe here because it’s inaccurate
because you deserve a place,
to tell your side of the things,
you need someone with whom
you can be honest,
to share aloud
how you were trained
to do the "right thing"
when not once,
not once,
did doing the
"right thing"
ever feel right.